#NewRelease: Company Ink by Samantha Anne
Company Ink Blurb:
After heartbreak threw her years off track, Violet Young is finally making her dreams come true. She’s just landed a sweet position with Wynne’s Kitchen, New York City’s world-renowned bakery at Rockefeller Center.
Ben Preston rose to greatness as a general manager at one of the finest dining establishments in the Big Apple only to fall from grace when life dealt him a rough hand and his wife left him. A phone call from the hiring manager at Wynne’s Kitchen is the catalyst he needs to start over.
Sparks fly when Violet is asked to train her new boss, who stands between her and the next promotion she needs. Worse still, she and Ben must fight not to fall in love … because there’s a fine line between a delicious affair and dipping your pen in the company ink. Will Ben and Violet turn up the heat or do their careers take the cake?
Excerpt From Company Ink:
Twenty minutes later, Violet had hand-iced sixty Devil’s food cupcakes, each with a Wynne’s signature swirl of cream cheese icing. Ben had destroyed a total of six cupcakes attempting to create a swirl similar to Violet’s work and still hadn’t managed to ice one. He did, however, manage to get tiny globs of icing all over his hands and wrists. With every cupcake he wasted, Violet’s tolerance for his clumsiness wore thin; letting out a small grunt under her breath, she looked away as she boxed her finished cupcakes, telling herself that the swirl wasn’t easy for everybody. So what if it had only taken her three days to perfect? Patience, girl, patience.
When she finally looked up, she noticed he’d gotten a glob of icing on his cheek. “Oh God, Ben—how?”
With a perplexed expression, he asked, “What?”
“You have icing on your face.”
Ben grinned shamefacedly, putting down the icing wand and a maimed cupcake.
“Whoops. That’s not cute, is it?”
“Not after your first birthday,” Violet answered. “You know, you’re pretty bad at this, Ben.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, this is going to take a while. What’s the point of this, anyway? I’m the general manager; why do I need to know how to ice?”
“The more available hands we have to ice, the better. That way, if there’s a cupcake emergency, we’ll be able to—”
“A cupcake emergency? You can’t be serious.”
Violet frowned, taking offense at Ben’s lighthearted laugh. She didn’t enjoy feeling like her passion was being mocked. “I realize it sounds funny, but it’s a legit issue. I mean, what happens if one of your white-linen paradises runs out of an item?”
Ben continued wiping icing off his hands and wrists. “We eighty-six the item, period.”
“We see more people at this bakery in a day than any of your fine dining
establishments see in a week. Eighty-sixing an item isn’t an option here. We’re ready for
anything.”
Violet stared at him pointedly, trying to convey the irritation that consumed her. Their eyes finally met, and a strained moment of silence extended between them. All around them customers and counter staff buzzed with life; to Violet, it felt like a tension-filled bubble had just expanded around them and cut them off from the rest of the bakery. She thought it might go on forever, but Ben stepped back.
“You know what, there’s a couple of things I have to take care of downstairs. I’ll
come back up in a little bit.”
Violet nodded wordlessly and watched as he made his way past the beverage counter, then the cupcake counter, finally disappearing down the small hallway that led to the steps into the basement. She turned back to the counter with a groan—that didn’t go well. She grabbed a trio of chocolate cake layers and vanilla buttercream to ice her next order. Once she’d completed the orders on her list and it was time to set up the production schedules for the night and overnight bakers and icers, she was completely aware that Ben hadn’t returned. In her mind, he must have planned it that way—the situation got intense and he took off instead of dealing with it. She knew it was because she’d made sure he knew she was offended, and she wouldn’t apologize for that. Well, Ben ol’ boy, now you have no choice but to face me.
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All About Samantha Anne
Samantha Anne is a writer/musician born and raised in New York. She is a punk, a friend, a sister, and, at her core, a hopeless romantic. Her specialties include romance, playing bass, and a penchant for lady jokes, tomfoolery, and naughty bits. Find Samantha Anne at www.samantha-anne.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter @SamiAnneRT.
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